Approve I-692

October 26, 1998 - Bellingham Herald

ELECTION: Patients with terminal, debilitating illnesses should be able to legally use marijuana.

Washington state voters should approve Initiative 692-a sensible, straight-forward and long-overdue measure that permits doctors to recommend marijuana for patients who are suffering from terminal or debilitating medical conditions.

I-692 ought not be confused with last year's Initiative 685, which Washington voters soundly rejected at the polls.

That measure would have permitted doctors to recommend the use of marijuana, LSD, heroin and other Schedule 1 drugs if research proved them effective in treating a "seriously or terminally ill" patients.

It also contained provisions that would have granted probation for people convicted of personal possession and allowed judges to release non-violent inmates serving time for drug possession and place them in court-supervised treatment options.

Seattle physician Robert Killian, the sponsor of both measures, admits his first effort to reform the state's largely ineffective drug laws tried to do too much, too quickly.

So, he went back to the drawing board and came up with a greatly simplified proposal that should be palatable to the general public as well as open-minded members of the medical and law enforcement communities.

Initiative 692 doesn't legalize marijuana, force physicians to authorize its use or require health-care providers to foot the bill.

A prescription doesn't give patients license to drive under the influence of the drug or permit medicinal marijuana to be smoked or displayed in public.

A patient who attempts to sell marijuana can still be prosecuted and federal laws against sale, possession and consumption would remain in place.

What I-692 does do is set criteria that doctors and patients must meet to prove they shouldn't be prosecuted.

A licensed doctor could recommend marijuana if he or she believes it will help a patient who suffers from cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, glaucoma or intractable pain. Those patients, in turn, could then legally grow marijuana for personal use.

Physicians who advised qualifying patients about the risks and benefits of marijuana use would be protected from prosecution.

I-692's foes point out that marijuana isn't endorsed as a medical treatment by the American Medical Association and say there are no definitive studies showing that the drug is effective in relieving pain and other medical problems.

But that's largely the fault of the federal government, which has steadfastly refused to fund research that could conclusively prove the beneficial effects of marijuana.

And there are a number of studies indicating the drug is an effective medicine-a conclusion echoed by an administrative law judge commissioned in 1988 by the Drug Enforcement Agency to review the issue.

Additionally, initiative foes complain that because potency of various kinds of marijuana can very greatly, dosages can't be reliably controlled. They also say the "60-day supply" allowed under the initiative is too vague and that the doctor-authorized marijuana use will encourage drug abuse.

But the reality is that the health dangers posed by smoking too many joints are far lower than overdosing on more powerful prescribed medications such as morphine or codeine. And abuse of those drugs is hardly a new phenomenon.

It's also a stretch to suggest that the 60-day supply provision would somehow permit a patient to cultivate and/or store vast quantities of the drug.

Granted, the lack of a reliable system for distributing medicinal marijuana is a major problem - one thing that the Legislature needs to resolve if I-692 passes. There will be doubt be others as well.

But the bottom line is that it's not possible to write a medicinal marijuana initiative that addresses and resolves every last question and stumbling block.

State and federal strategies for dealing with the nation's growing drug problem have been futile to say the least.

Rather than pushing for stricter laws that will put even more people behind bars, lawmakers ought to be emphasizing education, prevention and treatment programs while making better use of drugs for medical purposes.

People with terminal and debilitating diseases should be able to legally use marijuana to help relieve their pain and suffering. And doctors - who are in the best position to know the needs of their patients - ought to be able to legally recommend it.

Voters should approve Initiative 692 without reservation.

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